Incarnates

I was really enjoying the way that City of Heroes was heading with Incarnates and Ascension in the end-game content. In fact, it was what had reignited my interest in the game after a long break. Are there any plans to add this element in the City of Titans at some point?

I was really enjoying the way that City of Heroes was heading with Incarnates and Ascension in the end-game content. In fact, it was what had reignited my interest in the game after a long break. Are there any plans to add this element in the City of Titans at some point?

I also enjoyed the Incarnate System and content, so I'd be interested if they added a similar system.

The Incarnate system was an en game system where you went through a series if multi-team raids (or a revamped zone which was slower than the raids) where you earned ixp to unlock a series of unique powers. Each power had 2 different branches which youncould take to acrivate different versions. You earned unique drops which were needed to spend to obtain the “enhancement” to socket into the power to activate it.

You also eanred “psuedo-levels” which were used in the incarnate trials specifically. You could be. Level 50. (+3).

It drasticaly ramped up the capabilities of a character. Definitely was a power creep issue for standard content.

The plan to introduce the “coming storm” where a lore faction came to invade. Players would need their increased power and levels in order to be viable against this new faction and worj through the new content as justification for the power creep. So in normal Paragon City you would be “god-like” - an Incarnate, in the new content you wouldn’t be so because of the power of the new faction.

The plan was to keep increasing the difficulty, pushing players further aling the incarnate path. It would have definitely segregated the player base as the higher content could not be joined until you had sufficient incarnate ability.

It would be a constant funnelling.

The powers were fun, and the raids were (mostly) well done (and thise that weren’t were a complete mess).

As for CoT, we are a long, long way off from even considering such a system.

Not to mention that much of what the incarnate powers did (mechanicslly not numerically though not entirely either), players will be able to access through Tertiaries.

—

I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic - Tech Team.

I did Incarnate stuff in CoX primarily because it was what other people were doing. It was a social experience as much as a profitable one in terms of in-game rewards. I enjoyed doing the longer Praetorian Devouring Earth Trial because it was a fun way to hang around with other people and chat while doing something for the better part of an evening. It was akin to going to a bar that has a pinball/videogame arcade room and getting a burger, hanging out with friends, having a few beers, and generally having a good time, only in digital CoX form. Bars that DON'T have game rooms suck. The perfect social experience gives the people participating in it something to focus on. A legitimate, overt, ostensible reason why everyone's there. Some event or "draw" that causes the crowd to form at that place at that time. Then, from there on, you focus on the event when you're not socializing and you socialize when you're not focusing on the event. This is how fun is created.

The draw of the Incarnate system was that it gave you tangible powerups that you wanted. To be sure, they were constantly creeping up the power and adding in harder TFs and moving the goal posts progressively, as Tannim222 mentioned, and I wasn't totally okay with that aspect it in the long term sense, but I did it and enjoyed it while it lasted.

In the early (pre-Incarnate) years of CoH, I had latched onto the standard Task Forces largely because they were a fast way to level up as compared to trying to solo my defender, and they gave you a guaranteed Single Origin Enhancement drop at the end. That was it, an SO. That's why I did a lot of TFs that were like 4 hours long, for the SO at the end. Then later it was randomized IO recipes, then it was Reward Merits. If CoT has content that gives rewards like that, i.e. "do the TF, gain merits of some kind, use them to buy stuff" I would hope that most of the stuff you get that's "high end" is still randomized somehow. Dropping good items at random causes people to use the in-game trading system, and feels more epic when you get a thing you really want (or a thing that's really high-priced) at random.

If power creep is a problem, why not have content that gives rewards that are temporary in nature? Like a super cool HamiO drop at the end, except that it doesn't last forever. It eventually erodes away and disappears, causing you to maybe go run the TF again and get a new one. I know the devs don't love "perishable" Augments as a general rule, but I think I like that better than having some new permanent power which isn't really in my toon's wheelhouse. The Incarnate systems two big flaws, to me, were the aforementioned power creep and the fact that you had to fold some totally foreign powers into your toon''s backstory now. Like "yeah, you're a radiation-themed science dude, but take this "Well of the Furies" BS and fold that into your personal lore now, otherwise you can't actually keep up on this new Trial..."

So you want the rewards for doing this trials to be temporary and non-specific in terms of theme. HamiOs were like that, with the problem that they were permanent. Had they been designed with some kind of shelf life or been subject to wear and tear, you'd have gotten less power creep, I feel, and you still get the rewards for doing trials each time you do one. I know that one of the reasons for not having "destructible" Augments is the mental overhead people would have to do to keep track of like 100 of these things (per toon) in like 10-50 different toons, but I think there are ways to simplify that. At the very least, there are ways to prevent peopple from having to track their Augment life timers. For one thing, you could just not make that information public. Or you could have the game check and delete all "expired" augments at a given time every day. Then people would be like "well, it's getting close to 'The Time of Augment Culling', I'd better just chill for a minute, then afterward I'll check my powers to see what got deleted this time..."

Can't say I'm a fan of perishable loot. If I work towards something, I want to keep it. Period.

Instead of loot, why not just have some form of in-game currency that you can spend at your leisure, similar to Reward Merits? That way, you can either buy the power that may or may not suit your story or just collect it for later when something does come along.

I liked the Merits because they allowed me to buy Exactly what I wanted. No hoping and praying for the particular thing I needed, no dumping oodles of IGC into the market for that one thing I was looking for - particularly since I needed 4-5 of them. I wouldn't have wanted that to be Random!!

I liked the Merits because they allowed me to buy Exactly what I wanted. No hoping and praying for the particular thing I needed, no dumping oodles of IGC into the market for that one thing I was looking for - particularly since I needed 4-5 of them. I wouldn't have wanted that to be Random!!
Be Well!
Fireheart

No promises at this point, but I’ve outlined a system for this already. At some point in he near future our game play team will be circling back around through our various game play components and it is one of the items up for review.

—

I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic - Tech Team.

Perishable loot as a reward for doing content is really no different than one-shot temp powers, like the Warburg Nukes and the Jellomen, to me, and that stuff was fairly popular. Okay, they gave you 5 jellomen per refill, but same idea.

It seems to me that I'd rather have something that makes me more powerful in terms of the powers I have, which I designed into my character, and which I WANT to be good and which I want my character to use a lot, rather than have some foreign idea foisted upon me like a jelloman or a warburg nuke.

If we got rid of the idea of temporary augments and replaced it with a one-shot temp power called "Augment Supercharger" that you apply to one of your augments which supercharges the augment for a finite amount of play time, thus making the augment give you more augmentation than normal until the effect wears off, would that be better? Because it seems like the effect is the same, to me. Assuming you either use the supercharger or sell it, you're still doing TFs for a reward that only has temporary benefits, thus contributing less to long term power creep.

And to Fireheart, I think being able to buy exact items seems like that should be the purview of the open market, not just a thing that anyone can do solo. I'm okay with being able to get the lesser grade of stuff that way, but I think the "purples" high-grade stuff ought to be created strictly at random. Then the second tier stuff could be also random but with some way of grinding for specific items, but a lot of grinding required to keep the prices fair.

No promises at this point, but I’ve outlined a system for this already. At some point in the near future, our gameplay team will be circling back around through our various gameplay components and it is one of the items up for review.

Tannim, I'm perfectly willing for the path to 'just what I want' to go through Crafting. I simply hate to have the effectiveness of my build/character being completely at the mercy of the RNGsus.

Radiac wrote:

Fireheart, I think being able to buy exact items seems like that should be the purview of the open market, not just a thing that anyone can do solo. I'm okay with being able to get the lesser grade of stuff that way, but I think the "purples" high-grade stuff ought to be created strictly at random. Then the second tier stuff could be also random but with some way of grinding for specific items, but a lot of grinding required to keep the prices fair.

Right, but CoT won't have 'set IOs', or 'purple PvPs'. We'll be able to slot things as we want, within the limits of the system. 'Build your own Set Bonuses' is how I expect it to go.

The problem with the 'open market' is that 'just the thing I want' may not be available, as the 'open market' is subject to the RNGsus. If I want 4x the 'Crushing Impact' set at level 42... good luck! The Market is likely to simply not have it. By the time the Market fills my 'order', I've gained several levels and now they're all wrong! Merit Vendor will let me select and purchase what I want right now.

1. The augments and refinements available may or may not have rarities associated to them. It's true that they wont work like CoX did vis a vis the purples and procs and uniques and IOs etc, that was CoX's system, after all, not CoT's. But that doesn't necessarily mean that rarity won't be a thing in CoT.

2. Again, for convenience sake, I'm okay with the lower-powered stuff being available ex nihilo from an NPC. It's only the "very rare" stuff that needs to be A) more powerful, B) more expensive, and thus C) less plentiful. The comparison to CoX is still apt, in that CoX had ways to buy common, uncommon and even rare IO recipes at specific levels if you were willing to grind for them. They NEVER did that with purples or PVP recipes, as far as I remember. Correct me if I'm wrong. Had they done that with purples, which were the highest rarity, I would have considered it a big mistake. If they DO make such things in CoT that are analogous to the very rare purples of CoX, and if they DO make them available ex nihilo in an unrandomized way, I would hope/expect that to take a TON of grinding to produce one.

3. Getting an SO out of a task force, or even a level-specific IO recipe for that matter, did have a certain erosion to it. You outleveled the SO, in that case. Also, the reward for doing the abandoned sewer trial was a thing that was subject to getting outleveled as well. If you want to give people some additional incentive to do TFs once they are at the level cap, some kind of non-permanent reward would be good. I mean, have permanent Augments or whatever too, just have a non-permanent thing too.

2. Again, for convenience sake, I'm okay with the lower-powered stuff being available ex nihilo from an NPC. It's only the "very rare" stuff that needs to be A) more powerful, B) more expensive, and thus C) less plentiful. The comparison to CoX is still apt, in that CoX had ways to buy common, uncommon and even rare IO recipes at specific levels if you were willing to grind for them. They NEVER did that with purples or PVP recipes, as far as I remember. Correct me if I'm wrong. Had they done that with purples, which were the highest rarity, I would have considered it a big mistake. If they DO make such things in CoT that are analogous to the very rare purples of CoX, and if they DO make them available ex nihilo in an unrandomized way, I would hope/expect that to take a TON of grinding to produce one.

It was, IIRC, possible to earn specific purple/PvP IO recipes towards the end of the game by grinding alignment merits. It was not a short process by any means.

@Radiac
Good thing that you mentioned the "supercharge" alternative since that one is much better imo. The main reason is that without such a thing the "power dip" after loosing the perishable augment would be too big imo, since having to keep a "spare" augment for when it runs out will most likely not foster good feelings.

As for not giving times of when they run out in-game. Bad idea, very bad idea. If it's not listed in-game then it will be crowd sourced, unless the times are completely random. If it's predictable then people will keep track of it some how. Which leads to the real problem, if we don't know when they run out then we can't plan for it and thus essentially have to keep a full "spare set" of augments for all our perishables at all time.

There's another part here as well. Supercharge would most likely been as a bonus on top of the augmented power level while having the entire augment as perishable would be seen as the augmented power level itself.

I like the idea of a supercharge. It could be useful as a temp buff for missions too. I think there was something in Champions Online that like, made your character get super buff and it gave you a buff to your damage.

But anyway you could have the supercharge happen in missions you're like on a mission to save a powerful mage, or god, and you bust them out of where the villain is holding them which sets off alarms! Waves of badguys will be here any moment! The mage is too weak to help you directly so they supercharge you! Then you fight a ridonkulous amount of badguys!

The Augment Supercharge idea is basically the same as food, potions and other consumables in other games. And I don't recall food or potions being discussed in these forums or by MWM. I guess since there weren't any in CoX. Does anyone know what the plans are for items like this?

Well there weren't potions of food in CoX but there were inspirations. Which gave you buffs, and healed your health/endurance.
Edit: and I think the devs have stated that there'll be something similar here, using momentum.

Yes, called Reserves. It's gained when Momentum bleeds away from you from not using it.

Well there weren't potions of food in CoX but there were inspirations. Which gave you buffs, and healed your health/endurance.
Edit: and I think the devs have stated that there'll be something similar here, using momentum.

Yes, in CoT they will be called reserves. They are created automatically as your momentum bleeds off. I suppose that's as close as we've come to consumables in CoX and CoT.

Umm... Very interesting directions that this thread has gone. So where do we go once we cap out? Do TF after TF, after TF, after TF...I think I hear another game calling...

It has been stated that the main endgame is alting. I have 23 character bios and powersets already pre planned out, so...after I max out, before there are set items, etc, I'll just make another one from the list.

Although, Im HOPING the actual game play, and not a carrot on a stick (loot/levels) will keep me playing. Something fun and causal at end game, that lets me chat and chill with others while playing.

Umm... Very interesting directions that this thread has gone. So where do we go once we cap out? Do TF after TF, after TF, after TF...I think I hear another game calling...

At this time...roll another alr. Which will always be a possibility. Especially with the Path system, there is the potential for a different set of content to play through. With the Faction rep and tri-axis alignment system there is the potential to play through even the same content taking some divergent branches which weren’t experienced before.

But let’s take a look at end game progression mechanics for a moment to understand a couple of reasons for their design.

First we’ll look at the old game. With the level cap set at 50, the only option was to provide a method of horizontal progression, expanding what a character was capabale of doing. They also added in pseudo-levels which would have been necessary for later content.

But there was (initially) only raids to run through for this progression. The reason was simple - the resources required to create new level-capped zones are large in comparison to the resources required to create the instanced raids of the old game.

The team could develop several raids which could be replayed. Or they could create one zone which could be played through once (solo), or multiple times if you played under the leader of another level 50 team. They eventually (only after a ton of push from the players) added this zone content.

The pros are minimal resources required, level capped repeatable content, and horizontal progression. Player base is less segregated.

The other possibility is increasing the level cap, typically with a new zone and raid piece associated with it. Adding some new capability and requiring new gear to be applied either due to old gear being out-levelled, or insufficient for the higher level content.

Pros: new content tonplay through. New levels provided more capabilty. New gear makes players more effective for the newer content.

Cons: new content can only really be played through once (the old game’s sidekick system notwithstanding). Leaving only 1 or possibly 2 repeatable raids. Increased levels segregate the player base, leaving older content less populated. New gear can devalue older gear in player economy causing economic issues. New levels, new abilitiies, and new gear leads to power creep. Entire zones and raids for increased caps requires more resource to develop.

Comparing the two, you can understand why the first option was appealing to the development team.

I can understand the reasoning and it is appealing to me given our current circumstances for our dev team. The future may provide us with other options.

I can say we currently favor horizontal progression over increased caps. What shape thst will tske, how the progression will be provided is far too early to tell.

We have to get to launch. Then we have to get to our firet major update which gets players to cap. That will effectively double the map size and amount of content from launch.

There will also be subsystems and plenty of quality of life features to address. Not to mention all the analytics we will have to chew through, balance passes, and adjustments. All at the same time transitioning from a volunteer project to full-fledged company.

This is all to say, we are a long way off from getting to the end game. Much less developing end game progression and content for it. We have ideas for it all, but it is far, far too soon to worry about it.

—

I don't use a nerf bat, I have a magic crowbar!
- Combat Mechanic - Tech Team.

I can say we currently favor horizontal progression over increased caps. What shape thst will tske, how the progression will be provided is far too early to tell.

Well, if nothing else, Guild Wars 2's Mastery system has allowed for some level of horizontal progression. You complete world objectives for Mastery Points, then earn enough experience to fill out a given mastery choice. In a game like CoT, I could very easily see that sort of system opening up new missions, new things available in the mission creator, or new costume options. Fashion is the endgame in CoT more than any other game on the market (assuming you don't including alts), so it wouldn't be hard to relate the "mastery" points to earning clothing and missions. you could even have them be faction based, so one mastery track is you helping the Guardians of Atlantis or whatever, and as you advance with them, you get new things you can do thanks to them. There's no need for it all to be power creep, as if anything CoH proved that you don't need constant increases in power to achieve a fun game.

Another good example of this sort of "mastery" style sidegrading could be power refinement. For example, say someone has super speed - what if they could refine the power in question to let them run on water? Or up the sides of buildings? Or maybe that's just an inherent part of the power, but it's an idea to consider. What about making sharper turns while flying? Opening up pose and effect options for those powers?

Just some ideas. Maybe you can make use of them.

—

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

Thanks. It is good to know that development is thinking about the endgame. It would be a shame if it became stagnant.

I realize that "roll another alt" is going to be the primary way for most people to want to keep playing the game and there's certainly nothing wrong with that - I had a couple dozen alts back when I played CoH myself.

But the main thing that actually keep me playing the game for YEARS after I had essentially done everything the game had to offer was badge collecting. Some of the most challenging badges (that sometimes took many multiple tries to get) were some of the "Master of" badges.

For example it was relatively easy to get a basic PUG team to complete the Keyes Island Reactor Trial and get the basic completion badge for it. But in order to get the "Master of Keyes Island Reactor" badge you had to get four other badges each of which required extreme coordination and were almost impossible unless you had everyone on the Trial doing everything absolutely perfectly.

The trick of course is that to get everyone to do everything perfectly usually meant you had to re-run the trial a few dozen times to get it right which sometimes took weeks or even months of real time. But because you were playing it specifically for the master badge you didn't really notice that you were playing the same content over and over again - the fact that you were going for the Master badge made playing it seem like it was brand new because you were having to play it completely differently than you would a normal trial. As a side benefit it was fun to get together with the same people every session all working towards one shared goal in the game.

So I'm not going to say that becoming a badge collector is the perfect/obvious answer for everyone. But for me it kept me interested in the game long, long after I had finished all of the basic content the game provided.

I just want to point out that it is now, has always been, and will always be my assumption that I will not even be CLOSE to having any given toon's respecs, augments and refinements finalized until LONG after I hit the level cap. I expect SOME amount of post-cap play on my toons, and I expect that it will be primarily in an effort to obtain the best, rarest items (which I do not already have) to slot into my powers. That was one thing I liked about CoX. Not grinding for gear per se, but replaying enjoyable content (in my case mostly TFs, Incarnate Trials, and tip missions) in order to try to get something good to drop at random and/or get a Hero Merit to buy a specific thing with. I wish CoX had had some kind of "finish a TF, get a SMALL chance at a purple drop every time" type of deal. Instead it was just "nope, they're completely random, they could drop at any time" which felt like pure grinding to me.

Let's say a given random item drop in CoX had a 1 in 20,000 chance of being a purple, maybe you up that chance to 1 in 10 thousand for every end-of-TF drop. You would still have had to do like 3.5 TFs PER DAY on average to get your odds of getting a purple to ~1 even then. But if you tell people the odds are better, they'll do the content. I also liked the "Task Force of the week" thing they did.

Edit: To be clear, what I meant about 3.5 TFs per day: If you have a 1/10k chance to get a purple at the end of a TF, then you'd need to average such 3.5 TFs per day in order to make the expectation value of getting about one purple that way given 8 years of game play to do it. 3.5 Tfs per day times 365 days per year times 8 years is about 10,000 TFs run. That's the argument I'm making, that it wouldn't add that many actual purples to the economy.

I just want to point out that it is now, has always been, and will always be my assumption that I will not even be CLOSE to having any given toon's respecs, augments and refinements finalized until LONG after I hit the level cap. I expect SOME amount of post-cap play on my toons, and I expect that it will be primarily in an effort to obtain the best, rarest items (which I do not already have) to slot into my powers. That was one thing I liked about CoX. Not grinding for gear per se, but replaying enjoyable content (in my case mostly TFs, Incarnate Trials, and tip missions) in order to try to get something good to drop at random and/or get a Hero Merit to buy a specific thing with. I wish CoX had had some kind of "finish a TF, get a SMALL chance at a purple drop every time" type of deal. Instead it was just "nope, they're completely random, they could drop at any time" which felt like pure grinding to me.
Let's say a given random item drop in CoX had a 1 in 20,000 chance of being a purple, maybe you up that chance to 1 in 10 thousand for every end-of-TF drop. You would still have had to do like 3.5 TFs PER DAY on average to get your odds of getting a purple to ~1 even then. But if you tell people the odds are better, they'll do the content. I also liked the "Task Force of the week" thing they did.
Edit: To be clear, what I meant about 3.5 TFs per day: If you have a 1/10k chance to get a purple at the end of a TF, then you'd need to average such 3.5 TFs per day in order to make the expectation value of getting about one purple that way given 8 years of game play to do it. 3.5 Tfs per day times 365 days per year times 8 years is about 10,000 TFs run. That's the argument I'm making, that it wouldn't add that many actual purples to the economy.

I may not be reading this right, but it sounds a bit like you at first acknowledge that everyone likes different elements of the game ['enjoyable content (in my case mostly TFs, Incarnate Trials, and tip missions)'] but then suggest that something that happens to be your favourite should have a higher chance of rewards. I don't happen to enjoy TFs as much as regular content, so I wouldn't want to see my preferences be penalised relatively.

I was mostly just trying to point out that I personally like to do post-cap content on my toons as a way of getting items I want, or currencies with which to get those items. Yes, most of the examples given (except the tip missions I did, which were solo) were examples of team orient content from CoX.

I'm not going to apologize for NOT advocating hard enough for a play style that _I_ personally don't prefer. I'll let the dedicated soloists advocate for the things that they would like and I'll stick to telling the devs what I would like. I think that's fair enough.

I disagree with the use of the word "penalized" in reference to the awarding of different rewards for different content completed by players. I think different kinds of rewards, and different amounts of rewards for different types and amounts of content is good. Some content is harder than other content. Some takes longer. I like the idea of having HamiO-like rewards that are specific to the content itself, as long as they're not replacing my toon's powers with new ones that the devs are basing on the content and not on my toon's backstory. I never a said that soloing a tough mission or finishing a story arc SHOULDN'T get some kind of rewards (again, I actually soloed the tip missions fore the Hero Merits, as you'll recall), maybe even a similar purple drop chance increase. That's fine. All I said was, when _I_ was playing _I_ would have liked a better purple chance at the end of a TF, even if it were just the weekly strike target.

And for the official historical record, HamiOs were a reward for defeating the Hamidon. They were NOT a penalty for NOT doing the Hamidon. If they had had a thing whereby everyone loses 1000 INF per week if they don't defeat the Hamidon, THAT would have been a penalty. As it was, players that didn't want to do Hamidon raids STILL had a way to get HamiOs, i.e. by buying them on the open market. Nobody's punishing or penalizing anyone, there's just different content that has different rewards and people who either did or did not do that content. I see nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't bother me if there are Hero Merits for doing tip missions, HamiOs for doing the Hamidon Raid, Reward Merits for doing TFs, respec's for doing the respec TF, and tickets for doing UGC. Fine by me.

Aye, it's perfectly fair to advocate for the stuff you like; I just don't think it should be over the other stuff. You specifically suggested a higher reward rate on the content you prefer over the regular content, which I don't think is fair.

I guess that depends on how one defines and calculates "higher" in this case. Most of what he mentioned is group oriented which more often than not has a higher reward rate/level compared to solo content. Also I didn't interpret it as Radiac suggesting all of what he liked should have a higher reward rate/level but rather specific group content, like the weekly strike target.

I f you got the level vs level modifiers on top of standard level progression most of the power creep is manged by the actual tier for the level range.
we are talking about a power creep its a super heroic trope as new abilities become available. there is supposed to be power creep.
Its what super heroes and anime characters do the genre screams for a power creep.

Yes there are rare cases where the hero actually gets weaker such as All Might.from My Hero Academia.
When the characters start expanding and reaching levels what they can do is pretty much the same if you look at the very generic terms
we all do ranged and melee damage , there are some side effects that may vary from those attacks, we have some form of damage mitigation.
IT our specializations and style that separates each other.

The leveling system we have can go all the way to level 200+ with out adding new power sets that had not been planned from..
Real levels and Real Titans.

But oi the other hand with too many tiers the game can be seen as ghost town.

And for the official historical record, HamiOs were a reward for defeating the Hamidon. They were NOT a penalty for NOT doing the Hamidon. If they had had a thing whereby everyone loses 1000 INF per week if they don't defeat the Hamidon, THAT would have been a penalty. As it was, players that didn't want to do Hamidon raids STILL had a way to get HamiOs, i.e. by buying them on the open market. Nobody's punishing or penalizing anyone, there's just different content that has different rewards and people who either did or did not do that content. I see nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't bother me if there are Hero Merits for doing tip missions, HamiOs for doing the Hamidon Raid, Reward Merits for doing TFs, respec's for doing the respec TF, and tickets for doing UGC. Fine by me.

For the record, Radiac, I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. But I think it will be a VERY tough sell.

Judging from what I've seen in this forum, MWM seems to be catering to the crowd that want all things for all people. And there have been some very vocal participants who would claim that giving different rewards for different content is forcing players to do something they don't want to do in order to get the rewards they want.

I f you got the level vs level modifiers on top of standard level progression most of the power creep is manged by the actual tier for the level range.
we are talking about a power creep its a super heroic trope as new abilities become available. there is supposed to be power creep.
Its what super heroes and anime characters do the genre screams for a power creep.
Yes there are rare cases where the hero actually gets weaker such as All Might.from My Hero Academia.
When the characters start expanding and reaching levels what they can do is pretty much the same if you look at the very generic terms
we all do ranged and melee damage , there are some side effects that may vary from those attacks, we have some form of damage mitigation.
IT our specializations and style that separates each other.
The leveling system we have can go all the way to level 200+ with out adding new power sets that had not been planned from..
Real levels and Real Titans.
But oi the other hand with too many tiers the game can be seen as ghost town.

Most hero stuff has no power creep at all. Batman is the best at everything. He doesn't get better. Superman is super he doesn't get stronger or faster (except when he bathes in the sun). Thor got and lost the Odin force but he's still as powerful as he's always been. If anything making a Superhero game with no levels at all would be the most accurate way to portray comics. Though that wouldn't be a very interesting game, I feel.

Very rarely do super heroes get stronger, just smarter and more skilled at using their abilities. (Partially why I hate when people RP levels like they actually mean something.)

Radiac wrote:
And for the official historical record, HamiOs were a reward for defeating the Hamidon. They were NOT a penalty for NOT doing the Hamidon. If they had had a thing whereby everyone loses 1000 INF per week if they don't defeat the Hamidon, THAT would have been a penalty. As it was, players that didn't want to do Hamidon raids STILL had a way to get HamiOs, i.e. by buying them on the open market. Nobody's punishing or penalizing anyone, there's just different content that has different rewards and people who either did or did not do that content. I see nothing wrong with that, and it doesn't bother me if there are Hero Merits for doing tip missions, HamiOs for doing the Hamidon Raid, Reward Merits for doing TFs, respec's for doing the respec TF, and tickets for doing UGC. Fine by me.
For the record, Radiac, I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. But I think it will be a VERY tough sell.
Judging from what I've seen in this forum, MWM seems to be catering to the crowd that want all things for all people. And there have been some very vocal participants who would claim that giving different rewards for different content is forcing players to do something they don't want to do in order to get the rewards they want.

Assuming that the rewards gotten from doing any type of content are transferable to other players via the open market/auction house system, I refuse to buy the argument that random drops are bad or that all content of all kinds should produce the same rewards to everyone out of a misplaced sense of fairness to different play styles. In CoX anybody who didn't want to do Hami raids could buy HamiOs they wanted instead (or even do the Statesman TF for that matter, as the synthetic ones were the same). That alone makes those rewards available to anyone who wants them, regardless of their preferred play style.

Anime heroes keep getting stronger, faster, better until they can destroy planets just by flexing their muscles at them. It's a thing I see in many forms of serial entertainment, where, when the protagonist defeats a threat, then the next issue has an even bigger threat. Defeat the Master and discover that there's a Hidden Master behind that Master, so you defeat the Hidden Master, who is a mere minion, compared to the Super Hidden Master, etcetera, etcetera and so on.

Once upon a time, we were thrilled when Sherlock Holmes or Peter Whimsy solved the 'clever murder of the week'. It was just a perfectly ordinary everyday threat or a whole series of them, only complicated by various clever gimmicks. Sometimes there was a sort of 'climb the stairs and discover a higher perspective' situation, where one Did discover a series of more dangerous threats, but usually, the Solution to those threats was not 'a bigger hammer with more explosives attached'.

I think the idea of rising levels of experience/power came into the western mindset from RPGs.

Anime heroes keep getting stronger, faster, better until they can destroy planets just by flexing their muscles at them. It's a thing I see in many forms of serial entertainment, where, when the protagonist defeats a threat, then the next issue has an even bigger threat. Defeat the Master and discover that there's a Hidden Master behind that Master, so you defeat the Hidden Master, who is a mere minion, compared to the Super Hidden Master, etcetera, etcetera and so on.
Once upon a time, we were thrilled when Sherlock Holmes or Peter Whimsy solved the 'clever murder of the week'. It was just a perfectly ordinary everyday threat or a whole series of them, only complicated by various clever gimmicks. Sometimes there was a sort of 'climb the stairs and discover a higher perspective' situation, where one Did discover a series of more dangerous threats, but usually, the Solution to those threats was not 'a bigger hammer with more explosives attached'.
I think the idea of rising levels of experience/power came into the western mindset from RPGs.
Be Well!
Fireheart

The trick with the Serial Escalation problem is that the only way to avoid it is with carefully defined limits to what can be done in the world, and escalating the situation is very easy to do - that's not something that comes from RPGs, western or otherwise, but something that's been existent for as long as we've been aware of written storytelling (Beowulf is a great example, going from Grendel, to Grendel's Mom, to the dragon, and there's no way it was based on anything modern). The best way to handle it I've found is through the character gaining skill rather than power; they'll still be capable of dealing with higher end threats, but rather than becoming powerful enough to bowl over the enemy (The Dragonball Z problem, and a serious issue with Shonen manga/anime in general) they become skilled enough to work through the antagonist's foibles and weaknesses (And their own, for that matter).

A good example of a character becoming more skilled rather than more powerful (With very rare, notable exceptions) is the Dresden Files. Harry Dresden starts the first book in the series as one of the top forty spellcasters in the world for raw power, but raw power means squat if you can't bring it to bear; Harry just doesn't have the skill in magic to be a world shaking power. During the course of the story, we see how hard it is for Harry to bring his power to bear - often he can exhaust himself, it requires prep time for things he can't just do on the fly, the mental constructs he has to do, all that. Later on, we see the Senior Council of wizards, and frankly they're goddamn impressive. By this point, we've had the limiters laid out and explained in detail to us, about what all you can do with evocation an similar. Then we see the Merlin, the most skilled wizard on the planet, telepathically lay out a battle plan to everyone in a room in less than a second, having only come up with said battle plan a second previous. His mental construction of effects and systems is downright staggering, and that's what being the best spellcaster in the world is all about. Yeah, Harry is the Hero of the day, but he's clearly not up to par with the senior council - they would have wiped the floor with him if they ever had cause to, regardless of his own magical power (which is almost certainly greater than theirs).

It allows for escalation of threats while giving the character in question a more cerebral bent in how they approach them. When the enemy scales up but the hero doesn't, suddenly it comes down to fighting smarter rather than harder, which brings us back to that Sherlock-esque feeling of a plan and deductions coming together to solve the problem. That's a real trick in storytelling, and I think it'd be necessary to keep the story rolling well in a game like this after a certain point.

—

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

I wonder if instead of gaining more power getting special enhancements for powers would be best. Ones that can really change things up or add riders to previous abilities. Like you use a power and gain a heal over time effect.

I wonder if instead of gaining more power getting special enhancements for powers would be best. Ones that can really change things up or add riders to previous abilities. Like you use a power and gain a heal over time effect.
Or something. I dunno.

They have at least looked at the possibility to be able to change the secondary effects, or adding adding other effects. If we get it it will be somewhere down the line. Don't remember anything more said about it.

Well, one way in a video-game to become more skilled rather than more powerful is communication. For instance, one of the ideas that immediately popped into my head is that, rather than watching our character become as unto a god, we just grab a tool that brings the big villain down to our level; a kryptonite of sorts, or a staff that suppresses the power of dragons, or a book on the binding of demons to limit a demon's power. Alternately, getting help from various factions; say the Erlking's Wyld Hunt is hitting the city, an nobody can reasonably stand up to him. So, you get allies - maybe other fey that aren't happy with the Erlking either. They'll have a better concept of his weaknesses and may fight alongside you when the final battle comes, after you've gotten past his wyld hunt.

Adding new effects to old powers is a viable option, but it's most definitely power creep, plain and simple.

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An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

CoT has a chance to make end-game be about exploring different stories, not just becoming more powerful.

So I think farming for reputation with new factions, and unlocking the missions and NPCs and the resulting achievements and rewards that such elevated reputation can grant will be a large part of end-game. And I think it would make sense that some post-leveling content will require us to change our builds a bit, tweak them to take advantage of enemies' weaknesses or to hide our own, for instance.

Remember, the devs have given us two free builds. We know one is going to be there so we can optimize for both team and solo play. Maybe the second free build will be there so we can switch to a content-specific build, and trying to find that build could be a large portion of our post-leveling effort.

I'm not a fan of wholesale build swaps, since I think it places game system ahead of character identity. But It is a mechanic available to the producers and we would be remiss not to acknowledge it.

Things I liked about the CoX Incarnate system (again, just my personal preferences, YMMV):

1. Character power-ups that you could earn.
2. Being able to find a large group to do raid with relatively easily on a nightly basis.
3. Different raids and TFs to do to make it less monotonous.
4. Different content had different "rules" like the Keyes Island had the various phases and the BAF and the Lambda, etc. Don't Attack Anti-Matter yet! Avoid the Green Stuff. Who's got Desi? Am I on Team `Nades or Team Acids? It wasn't impossible to follow, but it had some strategy to it.
5. Items you could get like the "+1 combat level" inspirations, which were temporary but effective without being powerset-specific.

Things I didn't like:

1. Incarnate powers that did not fit into my character concept (which was like all of them).
2. The fact that I, a subscriber, couldn't get my non-sub friends into a raid with me in any way, not even by paying for that in some way.

What is the problem with power creep as long as the game is still (or more) fun?

The problem is primarily one of story stuff. It becomes harder and harder to challenge a hero who becomes more powerful; say at level 30, you kick a demon prince's ass. Where do you go from there? A god? what happens after you take the god down? Some kind of overdeity? Story powercreep is just as bad as mechanical creep.

That said, adding effects to specific types of power is still mechanical power creep, and the reason that's bad is because it obviates older content. Some people like running through raids in WoW solo because the older raids are easy enough to do with a single person, simply due to the numbers involved. It means that old content can't be played like it was before, making it basically wasted space, and that's a bad thing.

—

An infinite number of tries doesn't mean that any one of those tries will succeed. I could flip an infinite number of pennies an infinite number of times and, barring genuine randomness, they will never come up "Waffles".

The problem is primarily one of story stuff. It becomes harder and harder to challenge a hero who becomes more powerful; say at level 30, you kick a demon prince's ass. Where do you go from there? A god? what happens after you take the god down? Some kind of overdeity? Story powercreep is just as bad as mechanical creep.
That said, adding effects to specific types of power is still mechanical power creep, and the reason that's bad is because it obviates older content. Some people like running through raids in WoW solo because the older raids are easy enough to do with a single person, simply due to the numbers involved. It means that old content can't be played like it was before, making it basically wasted space, and that's a bad thing.

Power creep is a classic part of the larger Superhero genre and the driving force behind of many of the most famous story arcs (Dark Phoenix Saga, World War Hulk, etc.). As long as it is handled well in the MMORPG environment it's no a bad thing. And regardless, it is going to happen. As Eph said, if it's still fun for the majority of people (you can't please everyone and it's a fool's errand to even try), it's fine.

Old content that can still be played but just differently isn't bad, it's variety. And an exemplar/flashback system mitigates things even further, allowing it to be played exactly like it was before.

I dunno, most Superhero stuff doesn't exactly ramp up all the time. Supes fights Darkseid then stops the injustice league from taking over the earth. Not every big thing is bigger than the last there's just a lot of world needs saving, not a lot of it is a bigger problem than before.

Ie. The crisis where there was the antimonitor and multiple universe collapsing compared to zombipocalypse of blackest night. Multiversal destruction is a little higher on the list.

A good example of a character becoming more skilled rather than more powerful (With very rare, notable exceptions) is the Dresden Files. Harry Dresden starts the first book in the series as one of the top forty spellcasters in the world for raw power, but raw power means squat if you can't bring it to bear; Harry just doesn't have the skill in magic to be a world shaking power.

One of the important points with the Harry Dresden example is that the real powerful entities work through surrogates and you almost never dealt with them directly. And when he does come into direct contact they are masking their true intentions or are actively trying to kill him. If a CoT story arc could approximate a Dresden Files book experience I'd be very impressed. Unfortunately the threat of death isn't very impactful since we'd just rez at the hospital (or whatever death mechanic).

No, not all the time and not evenly across the board, but it is a staple of the genre. So is "power crash" a la depowering Supes, Wolverine, etc. And creep happens in MMOs. It just does.

My point is just that expecting creep and so planning it and handling it well (which includes keeping it from getting out of hand) is a better approach than trying to totally prevent it--both for practical purposes and for the genre.

Truth be told, I'll be quite happy with the Devs getting us to the proposed lvl cap (i'm assuming 50) and leaving us there for years. Let them expand content horizontally until we're spoiled for choice, THEN push the power cap again. Too many MMOs now a days pull a "one and done" approach to content. Invalidating previous content and "gear" while push players to greater heights.

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If small things were meant to live, they'd have bigger teeth or faster feet.

Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction

Truth be told, I'll be quite happy with the Devs getting us to the proposed lvl cap (i'm assuming 50) and leaving us there for years. Let them expand content horizontally until we're spoiled for choice, THEN push the power cap again. Too many MMOs now a days pull a "one and done" approach to content. Invalidating previous content and "gear" while push players to greater heights.

If you're OK with horizontal content expansion what's the point of -ever- raising the level cap beyond 50? The only reason MMOs got stuck in the mindset of "raising the level cap" was because it was easy and took almost no serious design effort on their part. All they had to do was change random "Critters" into "Super-Critters" by increasing all their stats by 10% or whatever. That's really the laziest way to run a game.

Since we have Devs for CoT who are going to attempt to do as much as they can via horizontal expansion I'm actually hoping the level 50 cap will NEVER be raised. CoH worked pretty well for 8.5 years and they never raised the cap above 50 which was what they had always planned the max cap to be from the beginning.

In my opinion, one method of demonstrating power without too much power-creep is in Complexity. Such as, instead of beating the Big Bad (again), you have to discover and then implement defeating his henchmen in the right order (and it's not the same order every time). Or you have to solve a 'be in multiple places at once' dilemma. Or the situation Looks like you have to be in three places, but you can do some tricky stuff to throw off the timing of the events you have to counter, so you can do them serially. ("Two out of Three Ain't Bad" and "Trifecta" badges/titles?)

With the Harry Dresden example, we came up against the 'all that power and no precision' problem. Warden Luccio's fire-blasts were like (frikkin') Lasers! I could definitely see a hero's power 'creeping' through greater precision, concentration, or utility. After a while, throwing 'bigger fireballs' becomes redundant.

In typical superhero fiction, one way of manifesting more power is to use the same power, but being able to do something extra/different with it. We'll see things similar to that just through gaining new powers in CoT. But what if we could gain 'Alt-key mods' to existing powers? Ah, but we're expecting that for Knock powers, right? What about other kinds of powers? Like your big AoE could be Concentrated to fit in a hallway and do twice as much damage?

Very true Lothic, if there is never any vertical progression after 50 I won't bat an eye.

I recently quit Final Fantasy XIV because the unending vertical progression. 2 weeks or less at the new expansion to hit the new lvl cap, then every 3 months replacing a full gear set or weapon with the newest tier. Rinse and repeat for 2 years til the next x pac comes out.

It got infuriating at the end there when i quit.

—

If small things were meant to live, they'd have bigger teeth or faster feet.

Protect the pack kid, no matter how much it hurts. If everyone else in the pack is safe, you can carry on or die knowing you've done your duty. - Fanfiction

As long as boss fights and stuff don't get too gimmicky. There was an alert in Champions Online where you had to don their super special super suit to break down a wall and fight a boss. Eff that. You're telling me my super alien or whatever can't break a wall? Screw you, Champions. And it wasn't optional either. At least one person had to put it on. The boss fight was rough without it too let me tell you.